By Martin Pearson

Norbert Gannicox leaned conspiratorially across the bar of The Squid and Teapot and asked, in tones barely more than a whisper,

“What do you know about absinthe?”

Bartholomew Middlestreet frowned, and paused for a moment before replying.

“It makes the heart the grow fonder?” he suggested.

“No, that’s absence,” snapped Norbert, impatiently, his voice suddenly louder. “I asked, what do you know about absinthe? It’s a sort of drink”

Before Bartholomew could formulate a suitable reply, Reggie Upton had sidled to the bar.

“I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying, old chap,” he said. “It made the old ears prick up, I must admit. Do you really have absinthe down at the distillery?”

“Not yet,” said Norbert, “but there’s a chance I might be making some. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about it.”

“Not me,” said Bartholomew. “It’s certainly nothing we’ve ever kept at The Squid.”

“I think I might be able to help, I have some experience of that particular spirit,” said Reggie. “What exactly do you need to know?”

“Everything, really,” admitted Norbert. “Mirielle, one of Les Demoiselles, was telling young Septimus Washwell that they drank a lot of it in that Mill place where she and the other girls used to work.”

“Ah, I’ve heard some excellent reports regarding Les Demoiselles, but have not yet seen them in action,” said Reggie, with a roguish twinkle in his eye. “But I think you’ll find that the Moulin Rouge isn’t strictly a working mill, as you might understand it to be.”

“That’s as maybe,” replied Norbert, “but Mirielle seems to think that I should be making absinthe. The truth is, I don’t know where to start.”

“Then it’s a jolly good job that I’m on hand,” said Reggie. “If I am to help, however, I’ll need to do a spot of flâneuring around the island, and see if I can locate some wormwood.”

“Wormwood?” said Bartholomew. “Whatever is that?”

It was at that moment that Father Ignatius Stamage chose to thrust his ghostly head through the wall, making everyone jump with surprise.

“Did I hear someone mention wormwood?” he asked. “You don’t want to be touching that stuff. It is the bitter and malignant plant that God inflicts upon the ungodly.”

The phantom Jesuit slipped back into the wall, only to manifest again some seconds later.

“Jeremiah, chapter nine, verses twelve to fourteen,” he added helpfully, before disappearing again.

There was a moment’s silence as the trio digested these ominous words, then Reggie smiled.

“Don’t worry chaps,” he assured his friends, “It will be fine. Once it’s in the bottle, it turns into a green fairy.”

Norbert and Bartholomew looked at each other in total bafflement. Maybe Mirielle had been correct when she had insisted that the English were all mad.

“We could yet be in business,” said Reggie, sipping the vodka that Norbert had given him.

It was late in the afternoon and they were sitting in Norbert’s kitchen, which doubled-up as an office, situated at the rear of the Gannicox Distillery.

“I have procured some dried wormwood from that physician fellow, Willoughby. He’s a rum cove. He is convinced that it has medicinal properties but has absolutely no idea how to use it. I agreed that, in exchange for a quantity of the herb, he could have one of the first bottles produced. When the summer comes we should be able to access fresh plants. Wormwood thrives on poor soil, and heaven knows, there’s enough of that on this island. With a little effort we could maybe take some seeds and cultivate it, somehow. It will have to be the same with the fennel. Luckily Philomena has some in storage at The Squid. In the light of these discoveries, I am pleased to report that we have, in our possession, two thirds of the holy trinity without really trying.”

“Holy trinity?” Norbert said uneasily, thinking about Father Stamage’s words.

“It is how many people refer to the three plants crucial in the making of absinthe – or La Fée Vert, as it is sometimes known. Wormwood, sweet fennel and anise – aniseed to you and me. This last ingredient we have yet to find.”

 

“Aniseed?” queried Norbert. “I’ve had aniseed seeds stored here for years – I can’t even remember why I bothered salvaging them.”

“Splendid!” exclaimed Reggie, clapping his hands together. “The process is very similar to gin production. Instead of steeping juniper berries, of course, you use wormwood. About a month in neat spirit will do the trick; your vodka will be perfect as a base alcohol for this purpose. After that, you simply add the fennel and aniseed for flavour. If you can find a few more botanicals to throw in, so much the better. As long as the holy trinity is included, there are no hard and fast rules to follow.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Norbert. “I can’t believe that it was in your ‘Army Officers’ Handbook’, or whatever it was that they gave you.”

“Indeed, it was not,” laughed Reggie, “but in some of the places I’ve served there was a decided scarcity of the ‘good stuff’. We had to make our own fun, if you get my drift. Needs must when the devil drives, and all that, what?”

After Father Stamage’s warning, all this talk of the holy trinity, and the devil doing the driving, was beginning to make Norbert feel more than a little uneasy.

There was little that either man could do now, until all of the ingredients for the absinthe were gathered together, so Reggie, lubricated with liberal amounts of vodka, regaled his host with tales of his military adventures in India and Africa. Time slipped by and Norbert, a non-drinker, realised that Reggie was more than a little inebriated.

“You’re welcome to stay here tonight,” he offered. “It can be dangerous wandering about the island in the dark.”

“I will be absolutely fine,” Reggie insisted, rising unsteadily to his feet. “I have been under the affluence of inkahol on many an occasion, without mishap. Therefore, I will bid you goodnight, dear friend.”  

Norbert watched the old soldier totter out into the misty darkness.

“You’ve forgotten your cane,” he called, but Reggie could not hear.

“Never mind,” thought Norbert. “I’ll take it back to The Squid in the morning.”

Reggie had walked the path between the distillery and The Squid and Teapot many times, but never before at night, and usually when relatively sober. Tonight, however, swirling mists obscured the uneven path; at least, that was Reggie’s excuse to himself for falling over. He lay there for a moment to regain his breath, then attempted to get up. For some reason one of his legs refused to obey his wishes. In fact, he had the distinct impression that his left leg was on a mission to go in another direction altogether. He peered through the gloom along the length of his body, and was surprised to see a faintly luminous tentacle wrapped around the disobedient limb, dragging him towards a dark cleft in the ground. Instinctively, Reggie reached for his swordstick, only to realise that he had left it propped against the wall in Norbert’s kitchen.

“Well, this is a dashed nuisance,” he thought to himself. “What the deuce is a chap supposed to do now?”

To be continued…